Dota 2 News: Valve gives updates on smurfing

The official twitter account of Dota 2 recently posted about an update on smurfs. According to the post, Valve will activate rank adjustments for various accounts who fall under a certain category. The player accounts which routinely perform higher than expected will get an increase in MMR (Matchmaking Rating) until it stops performing at that rate.

The post also mentions that the team will make slight adjustments at first. However, once they get confidence in their procedures, they will start tweaking the adjustments. Users who face a player who is outperforming others significantly can send their respective Match ID here after logging into Reddit.

Valve had already mentioned about smurfs in their update for the betterment of ranked matchmaking. However, it has come as a surprise that the developers have started working on rank adjustments for high skilled players in comparatively lower MMR games.

A smurf is a person who has a better skill set than the level at which he/she is playing. For Example, a 4K MMR player playing from a friend's ID in a 2K MMR game.

Smurfing is an annoying problem because it is hard to stop and ruins the game for other people. Facing and losing to a smurf can be frustrating and a waste of time and effort which players put in every game. A normal player will be helpless against a smurf who will the game comfortably.

Valve is dedicated to solving the problem of smurfing so that the game experience of new and existing players is better and enjoyable. The developers have already rolled out updates which affected the matchmaking in a positive way. Currently, the drafting phase is much better because of the aggressive report system and ban waves.